


The Dead and the Living

by Banhus



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Missing Scenes, Sexual Content, season 8 episode 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 03:34:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18842791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banhus/pseuds/Banhus
Summary: For a month it had all been easy: everyone right, and just, and the evil defeated in the end like something out of a song.





	The Dead and the Living

When she was twelve, Brienne had broken her leg. She’d taken a quick step forward toward the training master, gotten her foot twisted on an uneven cobblestone, and when his blunt sword came at her low it hit her shin with a sickening snap she felt all up her spine. That hadn’t been the worst of it. It was a clean break, didn’t even pierce the skin, and she’d sat down carefully and bitten the inside of her mouth bloody not making a sound. The worst came three weeks later, at the midwinter feast. All the minor lords of Tarth had come to Evenfall Hall. Even at twelve, Brienne had been taller than most of the boys, and she’d been made to feel conscious of it - every extra inch of limb that she thanked the Gods for in the training field felt suddenly ungainly in the Hall, as if she was a new-born colt, all leg and no grace. Going to the feast on crutches seemed like admitting they were right, all the children who laughed behind her back. Brienne of Tarth was too tall, a poor excuse for a lady in an ill-fitting body. So she’d disobeyed the Maester, and left the crutches, and gone to the feast moving very carefully. Dinner had gone fine until it hadn’t, of course, and her leg had given right out under her as she stood to toast. It was near a year later they started calling her Brienne the Beauty, and that second feast, the realisation that the boys dancing with her were being deliberately cruel, got tangled up in her head with her broken leg whenever she thought back on it: the sickening lurch of putting her weight on something that wouldn’t bear, the rush of humiliation at her own poor judgment. 

Waking up in the middle of the night, Jamie snoring softly in the furs next to her, she reached for the old ache at the back of her mind, ran through - oh, everything, the last five years, waiting for the _crack_ , reality setting in. Her mouth tasted like wine, she was naked, and the bruises from the battle had started to ache dully. She was in her own quarters, so she couldn’t very well find another bed, but she needed to move: some clothes, then, and water. Very quietly, she slipped out of the furs. Her tunics were folded neatly in the chest at the foot of the bed, and she’d inched it open and fished the top one out when Jamie sat bolt upright, the stump of his right arm reaching for a sword, one foot on the floor next to the chest before he realised it was only her. 

“Brienne?” he asked, voice still rough from yelling during the battle. 

The absurdity of the situation hit her all at once, her trying to sneak out after facing the whole of the night’s army, Jamie Lannister looking down at her in exhausted confusion, and she shut the chest again. 

“Go back to sleep,” she told him, “I was only cold.” 

Some of the sleep cleared from his expression, and his eyes flicked down to the tunic she’d set on the floor. She could feel herself blushing mottled red all down her chest; she was a terrible liar. 

“Well,” he said, after a little while, avoiding the obvious question. “I could help with _that._ ” 

Brienne looked up at him, willing the tension from her body. If she still sometimes looked for cruelty where there was none, she’d always felt oddly certain of Jamie. Even when she, perversely, hadn’t _wanted_ to be certain of him - speaking to him on the road to King’s Landing had been like watching someone use Valyrian steel to chop firewood: an unconscionable, stupid waste she couldn’t find it in herself to look away from. She couldn’t look away now. Jamie ran his fingers through her hair, cupping the side of her face, and she swallowed. She _was_ cold, despite Jaime’s earlier babbling about how hot she kept her room. The fire didn’t quite keep winter out, and she was kneeling, naked, on the flagstones. 

“Oh, move over, then,” she said, and he took his hand from her hair. She slid back into bed, into the warm space under the furs where he’d lain. His eyes glittered in the firelight as he watched her, and she opened her mouth for something to say. 

He’d kissed her, earlier, frantic, and she’d kissed him back - she didn’t know _how_ , and she was too distracted by the feel of his lips sliding over hers, the soft warmth of his mouth, to think. The sex had been much the same; she’d wanted him, in the quiet part of her heart she kept locked down, for years. Having him was too much and not enough all at once, and she’d shivered her way through the whole thing, desperate and overwhelmed and clutching at his hands and hair. In consolation, so had he; he’d pushed his mouth up against the nape of her neck, after, and stroked her arm with fingers that still shook. 

She realised she’d been gaping like a fish, shut her mouth, and turned her face into the furs to sleep. “Goodnight, Lord Jamie,” she told him. 

“Seven Gods, I hadn’t thought it was that bad,” he said lightly, and she lifted her head again to stare at him.

“ _Bad?_ ” 

“ _Lord Jamie?_ If we’re back to titles -”

“It wasn’t bad,” she said, desperately wishing she’d just left when she had the chance.

“Good,” he said, and tugged the fur covering her down a little. He ran a hand over her collarbone, neatly fitting his fingers against the long scars left by the bear at Harrenhal. “It’d be terribly embarrassing for me if you’d hated it.”

“Well, as long as your ego is satisfied,” she said, incensed, pushing herself up again. He caught her around the waist, using her surprise to roll her over beneath him. His hair brushed her cheek, and she could feel him pressed up against her leg. 

“If it wasn’t bad,” he said, “call me Jaime.” 

“You’re being ridiculous,” she told him, but his shoulders were strong beneath her fingers, and his knee was digging into her inner thigh; she shifted a little to make better room for him. He smelled like sweat, and woodsmoke from the fires.

“You managed before.” He nudged her head to the side so he could get at her neck, mouthing his way downwards. 

“It wasn’t -” she began after a few moments. He looked up at her, the same way he’d looked at her when he knighted her, they way he tracked the arc of her sword when they fought, wholly intent. The callouses on his palm were rough on her hip, and there was a blue, bruised line on his leg where his armour had been driven into the padding by a blow. “Jaime,” she said, pulling him up by his hair so she could _see_ him, “Jaime, I -”

He made a small, broken noise, and kissed her temple as he pushed inside her. Bowing her mouth to his throat, she opened her lips, feeling his pulse under her tongue, warm and salt and alive.

—

Everyone was too hungover to do much the day after the feast, but the day after that Brienne dragged herself of out bed early to run through her drills. She’d rested enough. Queen Daenerys seemed to feel much the same, since she set up the first of a series of war councils immediately after breakfast. Jamie hadn’t been invited, to no-one’s surprise, but Brienne had, and after three hours of haggling over supplies she came out to the courtyard to find him fighting Pod in the training ring. She leaned against the stone wall to watch. Pod’s greatest strength as a fighter was that he didn’t get his blood up. He wasn’t the fastest swordsman, and his strength was nothing special, but he didn’t lose his head. He kept his guard steady, and his footwork neat, and mostly his opponents tended to just wear themselves out in the face of that kind of even, patient competence. Jamie was exactly the kind of opponent Pod normally did well against: high-born, used to showing off on the tourney-ground. Still, Jamie had the natural talent of one in a thousand knights, and he’d spent his whole life honing it. She’d seen him, after he lost his hand, running through basic drills mirror-wise. Most of the flashy tourney-style bladework had gone out of him since Harrenhal. What was left was a series of vicious, economical strikes that made the best of his eye for openings. She’d seen Jaime beat Pod in training in the days leading up to the invasion of the Dead. He wasn’t beating him now. He was overextending himself, letting Pod get glancing blows in for a chance to hit him, and tiring himself out too quick by putting his full strength behind every stroke. 

“Stop giving Pod bad habits,” she told him, hefting one of the blunted swords from the rack by the edge of the courtyard. Pod grinned and moved out of her way. 

Jamie turned the sword-hilt in his hand, the blade glinting in the sunlight, and she dropped into a defensive crouch. They circled each other warily for half a moment before he started prodding at her defences the way he’d been prodding Pod’s. She managed to knock him to the ground twice and give him a really satisfying thwack across the shoulder before she mistimed a blow, leaving him an obvious opening. He didn’t take it quite fast enough, and she only just managed to twist the blade aside before the full force of her retaliatory strike hit him on the cheek. She dropped her sword’s point.

“What are you _doing_?”

“Sparring,” he told her. She sidestepped the lunge at her chest.

“No, you’re not. Is this because -” she flicked a glance at Pod, and trailed off. Gods, if it _was_ , she would actually kill him. If he insisted on going easy on her, so much less work. 

Thankfully, he looked insulted by that accusation, and did manage to hit her, that time. She swatted his blade out of the way with her own, annoyed. 

“I went easy on _Pod_ ,” he hissed. “And _we’re_ not -”

“You’re fighting like an idiot,” she interrupted, “it’s like you’re trying to get hit.” The indignation went from his face at that, and he finally stopped moving. Brienne looked at him, his white-knuckled grip on the training sword, and set down her own. “We’re taking a break,” she informed him. “Pod, go train with someone else.”

Pod, who’d watched the whole conversation with a mild expression on his face, gave her a little bow. “Yes, Ser, immediately.”

“Oh, for -” she knew she was blushing, and beside her, Jamie stifled a laugh into a deeply unconvincing cough. “I’m going to go _yell_ at him. You should have known better than this, too. You’ve seen him spar when he’s actually trying.” 

Except once she’d dragged Jaime across the courtyard into the nearest storeroom, cheeks burning the whole time, he used her grip on his arm to push her up against the door, and she was kissing him frantically instead. He had her half out of her tunic and was mouthing his way down her neck before she made herself speak.

“Jaime. Jaime, stop.” 

He lifted his mouth from her skin. His breath was warm on her cheek. 

“Stop doing that, stop _trying_ to get hit -”

“As my lady commands,” he said.

“I _mean it_ , Jaime.” His hair was tousled where she’d run her fingers through it, and she gripped it, forcing his head back so she could look him in the eye. She _knew_ why he was doing it, some proxy battle for the one he wasn’t riding off to fight right now, some obscure punishment, but she didn’t know what to say to make it alright, and when she dragged back his head he let out a small gasp and pressed up against her, desperately hard. _Oh_ , she thought, and hooked a foot around his ankle. He had enough presence of mind to break his fall properly, landing mostly on top of a pile of half-empty feed sacks. She pushed her advantage, knocking his hand out of the way when he reached for the laces on her trousers, and pinning it above his head. 

“You told me once,” she said, “that I’d wanted someone to knock me down and take me. Someone strong enough.” 

“This isn’t quite what I had in mind,” he told her, but he squirmed underneath her, trying to push up against her body. With her free hand, she began to yank open his laces. He was panting, lips parted, and his eyes slid shut as she finally got her hand around his cock. 

“You told me _you_ were strong enough.” They’d fought on the bridge soon after he’d told her that. She’d been terrified out of her mind the first half of the fight, and then she’d realised she could do it, she could beat him, and he’d realised it too; this felt very alike. It was new, but it wasn’t _difficult_ , not technically, and she reddened as she undid her own pants one-handed, but kept her other hand on him.

“Brienne, please -” 

She kissed him, shoving her way into his mouth, and he _let her_ , tilted his head back for her. She scraped her teeth over his lower lip as she pulled back a little. “Stop hurting yourself needlessly,” she told him. She wouldn’t have been able to ask that of him normally, not without bringing up Cersei, but this was something else: a fair trade. “Promise me you’ll stop.”

“Brienne -” he began, thrusting up a little. She pushed down on his arm, forcing it harder into the grain. 

“ _Swear_ to me you won’t -” 

“ _Yes_ ,” he said, and she tightened her grip, “- yes, I swear, anything -” and she slid her hand down his arm to his chest, and believed him. 

—

Later, he stared up at the rafters and asked, his tone light, shoulders tensing up again under her cheek: “Where will you go now?” 

“I’m sworn to protect Sansa and Arya,” she reminded him.

“They’ll be safe after the war. No army in the world will be able to pry them out of Winterfell in winter, and this one is meant to last for decades,” his mouth twisted down, miserable. “Fuck, I’ll miss not having to wear an entire bloody bear just to go outdoors.” 

“I’m sworn to them for as long as they’ll have me. I promised their mother.” It wasn’t an entirely fair answer, and she sighed. “I didn’t expect to live through the Long Night,” she told him. “Did you? I thought I would be a shield between the Dead and the living for as long as I could, and that would be a worthy end.” There had been a moment, after the dead rose again, when she had looked over at Jamie. Snowflakes had been settling in his hair, and the screams of the dying seemed far away. She’d breathed out, and something in her soul had gone very still. She would die here, next to him, doing what she was meant to, and she’d nearly wept from the bitter relief. 

“It would have been worthy, wouldn’t it,” Jaime said quietly, and she put a broad hand across his chest, feeling it rise and fall beneath her fingers. 

“I wanted to join the Kingsguard, before that,” she finally offered, mostly to stop her own thoughts. “You know I was in Renly’s. Women can’t - couldn’t be knights. No one ever decided they couldn’t join the Kingsguard. I thought it might be just as good.” 

She’d expected some triumphant posturing over that, but instead he said, very evenly, “Daenerys would be a fool not to take you.” 

Brienne bit down on the reflexive _if she wins_. Jaime wasn’t an idiot, he could read a battlefield. They’d both watched Drogon and Rhaegal burn their way across the snow, thousands of wights gone shrieking to ashes. The war had been over the instant the Night King was defeated. 

Instead, she said, “I am a knight now. I might - go to Tarth, go home. My father is getting old, and has no heirs other than me.” Jamie was right: after the war, Sansa would likely need a loyal banner-women more than she would a bodyguard. Besides, it felt, obscurely, like that was the trade she’d made. She’d achieved what she set out to do and more, was a _knight_ \- a knight! - and her father had made it possible. He’d let her train with the best swordsmen on the island; now it was her turn to serve Tarth. She’d knelt in a room with knights and good men, and they’d cheered for her, and she’d miss Winterfell so much it ached, but perhaps Tarth could become such a place as well. She had to try. She swallowed. “You could come with me,” she said, “if I go. I am sworn to serve the Starks, first.” 

“You are, aren’t you,” Jaime said, then, slowly: “Tarth is too far south. No, if Sansa is half as smart as Tyrion keeps telling me she is, she’ll get you the Twins instead.”

“ _What?_ Queen Daenerys would never -”

“Daenerys will be lucky to keep the North without an ugly protracted fight she can’t afford. It’s what I would do, if I were Sansa: trade the Riverlands for the North bending the knee. She can’t possibly hope to hold out against those nightmare beasts in the long run, not with most her men killed by wights, but if she puts a very good, very _loyal_ general at the Twins, the North moves hundreds of miles closer to King’s Landing. Daenerys will have to play _very_ nice, then.” 

“With House Frey gone, it defaults to the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands -”

“Exactly. Edmure Tully can hardly sit in two castles at once, and the only _other_ living Tullys are the Stark children. They might even be able to get Harrenhal as well in reparations,” he said thoughtfully, as though that were the problem.

“ _I’m_ not a Tully -”

“Neither were the Freys. Who would you send instead? Jon is going to King’s Landing, and Daenerys will likely keep him there, she needs _some_ insurance - and he’s not a Tully, either. Sansa is Lady of Winterfell, and Arya and Bran lack the inclination and experience to run a keep and a garrison. Either she gives you the Twins outright, or you rule it in their name. The Tully men will accept you, you brought them north to fight for Sansa, you’re Catelyn’s retainer, still, and the Blackfish liked you.” 

“I can’t be Lady of the Twins,” she told him, but it made sense; it was something Sansa might do. If she asked, Brienne wouldn’t say no. She’d sworn herself to Renly and Catelyn in wartime, but peace would come, and her oath held even what what Sansa would need for protection wasn’t a sharp sword and an arm to swing it. “I’m sworn to the Starks,” she repeated, after a short while, her voice firm. “Whatever my lady bids.” 

Jaime gave her a long, searching look, then tugged the hem of her cloak closer over her chest, refastening it to cover her from the cold, his expression odd and sad. “I know. I serve House Lannister, first. If there _is_ a House Lannister, after all this, of course. The honourable Queen might decide we’re more trouble than we’re worth.” 

Brienne nodded jerkily. “Right. Well. She likes Tyrion.”

Jamie snorted. “He’d beg her to disband the House. If Casterly Rock were on fire, Tyrion wouldn’t piss on it to put it - out.” His mouth snapped shut on the end of the sentence, and he shook himself, like a hound shaking a kill to break its neck, and stood up. She took his hand, and let him pull her to her feet.

—

In the end, she did let Pod chase him around the training rink that afternoon, trusting Jamie would keep his word, and sparred with him again herself after the council meeting. Then she dragged him off to her room, where he struggled half out of his tunic and fell asleep on her bed almost immediately, bone-tired. His chest and arms were still beat purple from the battle, but new bruises from the day’s training were coming in. Even blocking hits, he’d driven himself viciously. The army was to leave the next day. No-one had really spoken of what was to happen. Though Jamie had come north alone and defended Winterfell. Daenerys probably wouldn’t let him just leave for King’s Landing again, and he hadn’t made any noise about _wanting_ to, despite deliberately running himself into unconsciousness all afternoon, clearly furiously unhappy. Sansa had offered Brienne the command of a detachment of northern soldiers, and Brienne had carefully pointed out that Sansa had other generals; she was sworn to protect _her_ , personally. Sansa had given her one of her small, private smiles, and told her to tell Lord Lannister he was welcome to stay as a guest. 

Much as Brienne hadn’t thought beyond the end of the Great War, Jamie clearly had done so even less. He’d come North to die an honourable death under the single, overriding banner of mankind. Watching him slowly realise he was going to outlive Cersei, no matter what he did, no matter what _she’d_ done, was like watching someone taken by wound-fever. The poison was within his body; cutting him free might help, it might not. 

Either way, she would do what she could. Brienne woke early the next day, and nudged Jamie awake. “I told Pod to saddle our horses,” she informed him. “We’re going hunting.”

He glared at her blearily from underneath the furs. “You must be joking. It’s a wasteland out there.”

“It’s early enough in the winter that the game is still fat, and we ought to save the stores while we can.” 

“I already fought _one_ bear for you, this is pushing your luck,” he said, but sat up, and reached for his gilded hand. The furs pooled at his waist, exposing the line of his hipbone, and she had a vivid flash of what it had felt like digging into the inside of her thigh. Jaime finished lacing on his hand, and looked up, realising she’d been staring. She looked away quickly, but not fast enough; he preened ridiculously and said, “why, Ser Brienne, you need only ask nicely.” He was smirking at her, but there was something a little brittle underneath, and she looked at him; still half-starved from the road, older than when they’d met, his metal hand tucked very carefully under the fur, out of sight.

“Alright,” she said, abruptly. “You’re the most handsome man I’ve ever met. Will that do?” 

“Now, that wasn’t so difficult, was it -” he began, but she pulled out both his hands and held them between her own, and he trailed off. The gilding was worn through at the knuckles and fingertips of the prosthesis, grey steel showing through, and there was a dent between the thumb and index finger where he’d caught the sword of a wight. His other hand was rough and calloused, a little swollen from the cold. She threaded her fingers through his, and his eyes slipped from hers when she looked up, his throat working. Finally, he brought her palm to his mouth, and kissed it, and she said, “we should get dressed -” but her heart wasn’t in it. 

As they rode out of the gate an hour later, they both pretended not to notice the Unsullied lining up outside, ready to march. 

—

Brienne had dragged Jamie hunting mostly to get him out of Winterfell. Still, as they rode out, she realised how much she’d needed it as well. The storm had passed, the air bit in her nose, and the ground was covered in a crisp layer of white. Everything felt new and clean and bright. She set her horse to a quick gallop to warm him, kicking up powdered snow as he went. She was halfway to the tree-line when Jaime caught her, rising a little in the stirrups to urge his gelding on. He threw her a sidelong smirk, and she laughed out loud, he was _ridiculous_ , but spurred Sweetfoot on just the same, beating him the forest by a neck-length. The woods were muffled by snow, only the footfalls and soft puffing of their horses making any sound. Even though it was early winter, the Wights and the battle had scared off most of the available game. Jaime brought down a single pheasant, but they saw no other animal tracks, and ate lunch on horseback, pulling strips of dried meat from their saddlebags as they went. 

In late afternoon they came to a high ridge overlooking the plain around Winterfell. Already, the great pyres and churned-up mud were covered in a fine layer of snow. The gates were open, the last of the pack-horses going out to follow the army south. Even as they watched, Drogon and Rhaegal wheeled about, far in the distance, roaring and chasing each other’s tails, dipping and spinning like children’s kites. 

“Do you know,” Jaime said, after a long moment, “when I killed the Mad King, it felt like the end of the world. Like I’d done what I was meant to, and my story was over. I didn’t think I’d be called the Kingslayer, or that I’d still be in the Kingsguard - I just thought it was over. And the same, when I tilted at Drogon -”

“When you _what,_ ” Brienne broke in, horrified, but he only continued.

“- when I tilted at Drogon, that if I could only manage to kill the dragon, or the Dragon Queen, if I could do that, then that would be the moment that made my life: the best thing I’d ever do. But this was it, wasn’t it. This one battle, and we’ll still have to go on. ”

And she knew exactly what he meant. She looked at him and saw her own grief staring back. It was absurd, there’d been horrible losses, and they’d been out of their minds with fear and pain the entire battle. Still, she’d spent her entire life clinging to honour and justice, and in his own way so had he, wading through the muck to find them. For a month it had all been easy: everyone right, and just, and the evil defeated in the end like something out of a song, but already they were all sliding back into the mud. Brienne nudged her horse over next to his, and put her arm around his shoulders, and he bent his face against her neck and wept. 

—

They went out hunting whenever Sansa could spare her over the next days. Brienne borrowed a hawk from the falconer at Winterfell and came home with a brace of hare, while Jaime managed to bring down another couple of pheasants. After two weeks, they finally managed to track a stag. Brienne shot it clean through the neck with an arrow, and made a quick frame from pinewood with the axe she’d brought. They tied the deer to it, and the horses took turns dragging it on the way home while Jamie taught her every camp song he’d learned marching with the Lannister army. He had a surprisingly good voice when he thought she wasn’t paying attention - when she was, he mostly launched into over the top theatrics. By the time they reached Winterfell, he’d started making up his own increasingly ribald lyrics to ‘The Dornishman’s Wife’ and she’d shoved a full fistful of snow down the back of his tunic to get him to stop. He gave a very undignified yelp, and tackled her to the ground. She wrapped her leg around his and got her other knee into the crook of his hip to flip him over. The scrabbled in the snow, Jaime laughing almost too hard to fight her properly, and she had him pinned by the shoulders when he worked his metal hand inside her tunic. She swore at the freezing touch of it. He tried to shove her over, and she jerked at the neck of his leather surcoat to get _more_ snow down his front, and he was _laughing_ , his eyes crinkled up at the corners. Watching it felt like getting kicked in the chest, she couldn’t breathe. Jaime made a soft sound at whatever was showing on her face. She tried to tuck it away beneath a scowl, but he tucked his hand around the back of her head, and pulled her down to kiss her, devouring, his other arm holding her as tight to him as she could get. He pushed a leg between hers, and the tip of his nose pressed into her cheek, cold. Brienne was suddenly very conscious that they were visible from the gate. She shoved Jamie back by his shoulders and scrambled to her feet. 

He followed her gaze to the walls and sighed. “Brienne, the entire castle knows we’re fucking. The entire castle thought we were fucking when I showed up in Winterfell and you stopped Daenerys from putting my head on a pike.” 

“It’s still - it’s _private,_ ” she hissed at him, “and they should have better things to do than gossip.” 

“It’s winter. There’s nothing to _do_ but drink and gossip.”

“Well, they can gossip about something else,” she said firmly. “It’s none of their business.” 

“You’re missing the point of gossip entirely.” He got up, and took Sweetfoot’s reins; he’d been tied to the makeshift sled the last mile. 

“If Sansa sends me to the Twins,” she said in a low voice, to his turned back, “or to Tarth, I will serve. And I will need to command men. I don’t know how this war will go, but it will be easier if the things they say about me aren’t -”

“That you fucked the Kingslayer in front of half a dozen Stark bannermen?” Jaime said.

“- if they aren’t things that matter. I’ve been called ugly all my life, and unwomanly, and - many things. No one’s ever called me dishonourable. What’s between us isn’t dishonourable. I do not want people speaking of it as such, and they would.” She’d asked him to come to Tarth, and he’d not answered; he hadn’t spoken past the end of the war at all. Still, as she spoke, something in his face grew bitter and ashen, and she realised perhaps _why_ he had kissed her then, in front of the world. He’d never been able to kiss anyone like that before. “I am not ashamed of us,” she told him. “I’m not. But they will throw it in my face like it is a cheap thing, a _joke_ -”

“It’s _not,_ ” he said, the words tripping out his mouth raw and rushed. “Brienne, you’re worth more than all of them. I couldn’t - it would never have been a joke, with you.”

Three days after they’d first met, after she’d spoken perhaps ten words to him altogether that weren’t ‘stand,’ or ‘walk,’ or ‘shut up,’ Jamie had somehow cut directly to the core of her and worked out that she loved Renly. He hadn’t been cruel about it, but he had been right. This felt similar; him reaching in and easily plucking her heart from her chest. There were things they couldn’t speak of until the war - the aftermath, the human war - was over, but she could feel the shape of them in the way he grabbed her arm, desperately earnest. 

“Brienne, listen -” he began. Brienne cupped his cheek in her hand, his beard brushing her wrist, and pressed her mouth to his; chastely, but with enough vehemence that his cold-chapped lower lip cracked, and she tasted blood. When she stepped back, he straightened her cloak for her, and smoothed her hair back from her face. 

“Get the deer to the kitchens, I’ll stable the horses,” she told him. He gave her a little mock bow, “Ser Brienne,” and dragged the carcass off.

However, by the time she’d had the horses seen to by stablehands, and unloaded their saddles and gear, Sansa was striding across the courtyard to her, and she knew in the pit of her stomach it wasn’t good news before Sansa even spoke. 

—

When the soft _snick_ of the door slipping back into place woke her that night, she reached for Jaime’s wrist - someone was coming, they needed their weapons. The bed was empty, still warm, and Jaime was gone. Running on rote practice, she tied on her boots and pulled a cloak tight around her. She found him in the courtyard, horse saddled, and pleaded with him to stay; she didn’t want to look back and think _oh, if I’d only done this, said this_ \- and he’d touched her wrist, once, but gone all the same.

She watched Jaime ride out of the gate of Winterfell waiting for the sickening lurch, her leg giving out, she’d misjudged, she’d been wrong to - so much. Still, as he faded into the night, it never came. She knew him like she knew herself, with bone-deep certainty; that cold glint of steel under all the gilt. He’d gone back to Cersei, he said, but he’d gone after the tide had turned. She was winning, now. Jaime had never shied from a losing battle if he thought it was the right battle. He’d run at a bear, a dragon, at the Night King’s endless army. He’d never shied from a battle he knew would kill him to fight. Brienne dried her eyes, and went looking for Sansa to tell her she _would_ be taking that detachment of soldiers to King’s Landing, if they were still needed. Jaime had given her the sword that saved Sansa, and had ridden north for her. She owed him a debt that went beyond whatever they were to each other. He’d lain down to die after he lost his hand. If he meant to fight Cersei, she would come south for him, and drag him back to the living once he was done.


End file.
